Mind Mapping
An innovative method to pass and score well in 10th/ 12th Public Exams
Problem
Currently high-stake matriculation examinations decide the fate of billions of school-going students around the world. The stakes are even higher for first-generation school goers from underprivileged sections of the society, as passing the exam or not will be a life changing event. However, due to poor foundational instructions in most of the elementary schools, the students usually suffer from relatively lower literacy skills and comprehension abilities. This exacerbates the problem as students are required to memorise and understand important concepts to crack their public exams, let alone pass. The mere anxiety to take the exam has created what we now call as ‘exam fever’ syndrome and unnecessarily puts the students in lot of psychological and emotional stress and even results in suicides of students who don’t pass it.
Rationale
Studies suggests more than 60% of us are visual learners as result of our brain capacity more attuned to remembering things pictorially or as images. The current 10th and 12th textbooks are text heavy and the narrations are descriptive, that students often resort to rote learning rather than aim for understanding. Unfortunately the teaching and learning methods are also geared towards cranking for the exams, mindlessly memorizing notes without attempting at comprehension. This creates stress both for the students and teachers alike.
Our Solution: Mind Mapping
We can leverage the principle of our brain’s natural inclination to learn visually to support students to memorise and understand their subject content and thereby pass and score well in their exams. One method of catalyzing the processes of comprehension and particularly for memory is Tony Buzan’s Mind Mapping technique. Developed in the 1960’s (Buzan & Buzan, 2010), Mind Mapping is a multi-purpose tool for note-taking in meetings and classes, analyzing study materials for better retention and comprehension, brainstorming ideas, problem-solving, decision-making, presentations, writing, research, and development.
What is Mind Mapping?
A mind map is a graphical way to represent ideas and concepts. It is a visual thinking tool that helps structuring information, helping you to better analyze, comprehend, synthesize, recall and generate new ideas.
In a mind map, as opposed to traditional note taking or a linear text, information is structured in a way that resembles much more closely how your brain actually works. Since it is an activity that is both analytical and artistic, it engages your brain in a much, much richer way, helping in all its cognitive functions. And, best of all, it is fun!
An Example
Here is a mind map about mind mapping itself. It presents, in a visual way, the core elements and techniques on how to draw mind maps.
Benefits and Uses
Basically, mind mapping avoids dull, linear thinking, jogging your creativity and making note taking fun again. The students can use mind maps for -
- Note taking
- Brainstorming (individually or in groups)
- Problem solving
- Studying and memorization
- Planning
- Researching and consolidating information from multiple sources
- Presenting information
- Gaining insight on complex subjects
- Jogging your creativity
Teaching the Students Mind Mapping
We can provide students with summarized materials in mind mapping format and train them to use it as well. Students can draw a mind map in 3 simple steps:
- Start in the middle of a blank page, writing or drawing the idea you intend to develop. We would suggest the students to use the page in landscape orientation.
- Develop the related subtopics around this central topic, connecting each of them to the center with a line.
- Repeat the same process for the subtopics, generating lower-level subtopics as you see fit, connecting each of those to the corresponding subtopic.
Some more recommendations:
- Use colors, drawings and symbols copiously. We suggest the students to be as visual as they can be, and we found retention increases many fold.
- Keep the topics labels as short as possible, keeping them to a single word — or, better yet, to only a picture.
- Vary text size, color and alignment. Vary the thickness and length of the lines. Provide as many visual cues as students can to emphasize important points. Every little bit helps engaging the brain and aid memorisation.
Research Validation of Mind Mapping Technique
Mind Mapping is remindful of Sigmund Freud’s method of free association for uncovering repressed or unconscious memories. Buzan and Buzan (2010) observed that a mind map resembles the brain’s neuronal structure with infinite connections. The brain is a big “associative machinery” (p. 37) and Mind Mapping “mimics thought processes” (p. 12) by naturally calling to mind associations to recorded words and images on the map as students progress through the task. They observe that the brain — unlike a sequential processing computer — uses multilateral thinking, going in many directions at once in a holistic manner, using both sides of the brain. This they label “radiant thinking.”
A brief review of studies suggests that mind mapping produces comparable or superior results to traditional note-taking strategies.
- There seem to be many enthusiastic users of Mind Mapping. Schweizer (2011) notes that the world’s leading companies — Infosys, Wipro, Boeing, Ford, Mayo Clinic, and BP — train their employees on Mind Mapping.
- After adjusting for baseline and motivational differences, Ferrand, Hussain, and Hennessey (2002) found that medical students assigned to a Mind Mapping group showed superior recall one week following the study of a passage, compared to students assigned to a self-selected study group.
- Abi-El-Mona and Ad-El-Khalick (2008) found that 8th grade students assigned to a Mind Mapping group showed substantial gains in conceptual and practical understanding on a science achievement test than those assigned to a note summarization group. The authors noted that prior achievement levels did not moderate the results. The study lasted four weeks and students spent 10 minutes at the end of each session preparing mind maps or summaries in their respective groups.
- D’Antoni, Zipp, Olson, and Cahill (2010), using medical students as participants, found their Mind Mapping and Standard Note Taking groups did equally well on a test of factual short-term retention and critical thinking.
- Javadnia, Bayat, Ghorbani, Ghanbari, & Ghodoosi (2011) compared Mind Mapping slide presentation with traditional PowerPoint slide presentation on lessons in head and neck osteology. On an end of the term test, medical students in the Mind Mapping slide presentation group performed better than those in the traditional group.
References
- Abdolahi, M., Javadnia, F., Bayat, P-D., Ghorbani, R., Ghanbari, A., & Ghodoosi, B. (2011). Mind map teaching of gross anatomy is sex dependent. International Journal of Morphology, 29, 41–44.
- Abi-El-Mona, I., & Ad-El-Khalick, F (2008). The Influence of Mind Mapping on Eighth Graders’ Science Achievement. School Science and Mathematics, 108, 298–312.
- Buzan, T., & Buzan, B. (2010). The Mind Map Book. Unlock your creativity, boost your memory, change your life. Harlow, England: Pearson.
- D’Antoni, A. V., Zipp, G. P., Olson, V. G., and Cahill, T. F. (2010). Does the mind map learning strategy facilitate information retrieval and critical thinking in medical students? BMC Medical Education, published online 2010 September 16. doi: 10.1186/1472–6920–10–61.
- Farrand, P., Hussain, F., & Hennessey, E. (2002). The efficacy of the ‘mind map’ study technique. Medical Education, 36, 426–431.
- Hey, J. G., Joyce, C. K., Jennings, K. E., Kalil, T., & Grossman, J. C. (2009). Putting the discipline in interdisciplinary,: Using speedsorming to teach and initiate creative collaboration in nanoscience. Journal of Nano Education, 1, 75–85.
- Schweizer, T. (2011). Introducing idea mapping into the business curriculum: Results from two experiments. International Journal of Technology, Knowledge & Society, 7, 191–200.
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